USPTO Patents Application 09998153

United States Patent and Trademark Office

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450

Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450

WWW.USplO.gOV

APPLICATION NO.

FILING DATE

FIRST NAMED INVENTOR

ATTORNEY DOCKET NO.

CONFIRMATION NO.

09/998,153

1 1/29/2001

Chieng-Hwa Lin

016295.0732

5467

7590

Roger Fulghum
Baker Botts L.L.P.
One Shell Plaza
910 Louisiana Street
Houston, TX 77002-4995

12/21/2004

EXAMINER

HA, THANH T

ART UNIT

PAPER NUMBER

2126

DATE MAILED: 12/21/2004

Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.

PTO-90C (Rev. 10/03)

Office Action Summarv

Application No.

09/998,153

Applicant(s)
LIN ET AL.

Examiner
Ha Thanh

Art Unit

2126

- The MAILING DATE of this communication appears on the cover sheet with the correspondence address
Period for Reply

A SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD FOR REPLY IS SET TO EXPIRE 3 MONTH(S) FROM
THE MAILING DATE OF THIS COMMUNICATION.

- Extensions of time may be available under the provisions of 37 CFR 1.136(a). In no event, however, may a reply be timely filed
after SIX (6) MONTHS from the mailing date of this communication.

- If the period for reply specified above is less than thirty (30) days, a reply within the statutory minimum of thirty (30) days will be considered timely.

- If NO period for reply is specified above, the maximum statutory period will apply and will expire SIX (6) MONTHS from the mailing date of this communication.

- Failure to reply within the set or extended period for reply will, by statute, cause the application to become ABANDONED (35 U.S.C. § 133).
Any reply received by the Office later than three months after the mailing date of this communication, even if timely filed, may reduce any
earned patent term adjustment. See 37 CFR 1.704(b).

Status

Responsive to communication(s) filed on 11/29/2001 .
2a)Q This action is FINAL. 2b)^ This action is non-final.

3) D Since this application is in condition for allowance except for formal matters, prosecution as to the merits is

closed in accordance with the practice under Ex parte Quayle, 1935 CD. 1 1 , 453 OG. 213.

Disposition of Claims

4) [3 Claim(s) 1-20 is/are pending in the application.

4a) Of the above claim(s) is/are withdrawn from consideration.

5) D Claim(s) is/are allowed.

6) (3 Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected.

7) D Claim(s) is/are objected to.

8) D Claim(s) are subject to restriction and/or election requirement.

Application Papers

9) D The specification is objected to by the Examiner.

10)^ The drawing(s) filed on 29 November 2001 is/are: a)K accepted or b)D objected to by the Examiner.

Applicant may not request that any objection to the drawing(s) be held in abeyance. See 37 CFR 1 .85(a).

Replacement drawing sheet(s) including the correction is required if the drawing(s) is objected to. See 37 CFR 1.121(d).
11 )□ The oath or declaration is objected to by the Examiner. Note the attached Office Action or form PTO-152.

Priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119

12)D Acknowledgment is made of a claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. § 1 19(a)-(d) or (f).
a)D All b)D Some * c)D None of:

1 .□ Certified copies of the priority documents have been received.

2. Q Certified copies of the priority documents have been received in Application No. .

3. D Copies of the certified copies of the priority documents have been received in this National Stage

application from the International Bureau (PCT Rule 17.2(a)).
* See the attached detailed Office action for a list of the certified copies not received.

Attachment(s)

1) ^ Notice of References Cited (PTO-892) 4) O Interview Summary (PTO-413)

2) □ Notice of Draftsperson's Patent Drawing Review (PTO-948) Paper No(s)/Mail Date. .

3) K Information Disclosure Statement(s) (PTO-1449 or PTO/SB/08) 5 ) D Notice of Informal Patent Application (PTO-152)

Paper No(s)/Mail Date 11/29/01 . 6) □ Other: .

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

PTOL-326 (Rev. 1-04)

Office Action Summary

Part of Paper No./Mail Date 120604

Application/Control Number: 09/998,153
Art Unit: 2126

Page 2

DETAILED ACTION

1 . Claims 1 -20 are pending in the application.

Claim Objections

2. Claims 16 and 19 are objected to because they are depend to themself.
For examining purpose, they are examined as they are depending on
claim 13. Correction is required.

Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103

The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for
all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:

(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or
described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter
sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the
art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner
in which the invention was made.

3. Claims 1-11, and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Keller et al. (hereafter Keller) (U.S. Patent 6289396
B1), in view of applicant admitted prior art (AAPA).

4. As to claim 1, Keller teaches the invention substantially as claimed
including a method for establishing a device driver in an operating system
(abstract, line 1), comprising the steps of:

providing a device driver having at least one module in executable
form and a service layer [col. 9, lines 1-3];

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Art Unit: 2126

compiling the service layer against the kernel of the operating
system [col. 7, lines 61-63];

wherein the compiled service layer acts as an interface between
the kernel of the operating system and at least one executable module of
the device driver [col. 8, lines 6-1 1].

Keller is silent about the device driver is in an open source
operation system. However, AAPA teaches "the Linux open source
operating system is a well-known standardized version that is marketed
by Red Hat, Inc. of Durham, North Caroline; and have come into more
common use in computer systems" (spec. p. 2, lines 5-11). It would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teaching of
Keller et al. and AAPA because AAPA's would improve the flexibility of
Keller et al's system by making it easy to modify to accommodate the
needs or desires of the user thereby make the product more attractive
and more marketable to the user.

5. As to claim 2, Keller teaches associating the naming convention of
function calls in the kernel to the naming convention of expected function
calls in the device driver [col. 3, lines 58-61].

6. As to claim 3, Keller teaches linking the compiled service layer to the at
least one module in executable form to form the device driver [col. 8, lines
11-14].

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Page 4

7. As to claim 4, Keller teaches a method as set forth in claim 3, further
comprising the step of storing the device driver in memory [col. 7, lines
61-62].

8. As to claim 5, Keller teaches providing a device driver having multiple
modules in executable form, each of the modules associated with
hardware architecture of a computer system [col. 1 , lines 24-28].

9. As to claims 6-7, they are rejected for the same reason as claims 3-4
above.

10. As to claim 8, it is rejected for the same reason as claim 1 above. In
addition, Keller teaches the invention substantially as claimed including a
computer system comprising:

a processor, a memory, an operating system having a kernel;
and a device driver [col. 38, lines 34-38].
The device driver comprising,

an executable module compiled from a service layer, and

at least one executable module,

wherein the executable module compiled from the service
layer provides an interface between the kernel of the operating
system and the at least one executable module such that the

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executable module compiled from the service layer receives
kernel-specific function calls from the kernel of the operating
system [col. 39, lines 15-35].

11. As to claim 9, this is a computer system claim that corresponds to the
method claim 4. Therefore, this claim is rejected for the same reason as
claim 4 above.

12. As to claim 10, this is a computer system claim that corresponds to the
method claim 5. Therefore, this claim is rejected for the same reason as
claim 5 above.

1 3. As to claim 1 1 , this is a computer system claim that corresponds to the
method claim 2. Therefore, this claim is rejected for the same reason as
claim 2 above.

14. As to claim 13, this is a method for loading a device driver in a computer
system claim that corresponds to the method claim 1 and method claim 3.
Therefore, it is rejected for the same reason as claims 1 and 3 above.

15. As to claim 14, this is a method of loading a device driver claim that
corresponds to computer system claim 1 1 . Therefore, it is rejected for the
same reason as claim 1 1 above.

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Page 6

16. As to claim 15, Keller does not specifically teach recompiling the open
source service layer if it is determined that the kernel of the open source
service layer has been modified. However, Keller discloses an operating
system reloads the state of the device driver and hardware controller
consistent with the state of a new mode of operation [col. 3, lines 2-4]. It
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to know that application has to be recompiled in
order to be operative in a new or modified environment system.

17. As to claim 16, this is a method for loading a device driver claim that
corresponds to the method of claim 3. Therefore, it is rejected for the
same reason as claim 3 above.

18. As to claim 17, Keller does not specifically teach the step of determining,
prior to compilation of the open source service layer, whether a
precompiled device driver exists that is associated with the kernel of the
operating system and loading the precompiled device driver if such a
device driver exists. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time of invention was made to determine whether a
precompiled device driver associated with the kernel of the operating
system existed and load it prior to compiling the open source service
layer. One of the ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to

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check for the existence of a precompiled device driver and load it before
compiling to save compiling time and computational cycles, thereby
allowing the computer system to operate more efficiently.

19. As to claim 18, Keller teaches a method as set forth in claim 13, where in
the function calls passed between the compiled open source service layer
and the precompiled driver modules are specific to the hardware
architecture of the computer system [col. 25, lines 38-40]. Keller does not
specifically teach the function calls passed between the kernel of the
operating system and the compiled open source service layer are not
specific to the hardware architecture of the computer system. However,
Keller said that his invention is to provide a flexible, modular device driver
architecture that can provide independent hardware configuration options
[col. 3, lines 14-17]. It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in
the art at the time the invention was made, to make function calls passed
between the kernel and the service layer hardware architecture
independent using the teachings and motivation set forth in Keller.

20. As to claim 19, it is rejected for the same reason as claim 15 above.

21 . As to claim 20, this is method for loading a device driver claim that
corresponds to the method of claim 1 1 . Therefore, it is rejected for the
same reason as claim 1 1 above.

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Page 8

22. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Keller et al. (hereafter Keller) (U.S. Patent 6289396 B1), in view of
AAPA, as applied to claims 1 and 11 above, and further in view of
Broman et al. (hereafter Broman) (U.S. Patent 5754858).

23. As to claim 12, Keller and AAPA do not specifically teach the name
convention comprises the use of a suffix for the naming of function calls,
the suffix providing a naming convention that is specific to the kernel of
the operating system. However, Broman teaches a naming convention in
which a three-letter suffix is appended to the template name [col. 17, lines
42-44]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time the invention was made to combine the teaching of Keller et al.,
AAPA and Broman et al. because Broman et al's step of using the suffix
for the naming of function calls that are specific to the kernel would make
function calls more understandable by making them easier to read and
maintain. They can also give information about the function of the
identifier that can be helpful in understanding the calls.

Conclusion

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1 Page 9

Art Unit: 2126

24. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications
from the examiner should be directed to Ha.Thanh whose telephone
number is 571-272-7220. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00
AM -4:30 PM.

If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful,
the examiner's supervisor, Meng-Ai An can be reached on 571-272-3756.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or
proceeding is assigned is 703-872-9306.

Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained
from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status
information for published applications may be obtained from either Private
PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is
available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the
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on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business
Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).

Thanh Ha

Patent Examiner

Art Unit 2126